9/18/2003 @ 6:00PM

Gates: A Decade At The Top

It’s been said that it’s slippery at the top, but not for
Microsoft
co-founder
Bill
Gates
Bill Gates
. This year marks the tenth consecutive year that Gates, 47, has been named the richest man in America.

Gates’ net worth, currently pegged at $46 billion, has sagged significantly since the peak of the technology bubble in 1999. That year Gates was worth a staggering $85 billion, almost all of it tied up in shares of Microsoft
, the company he co-founded with fellow Forbes 400 member
Paul
Allen
Paul Allen
in 1975. Allen is the third-richest man in America, worth $22 billion.

Will anyone ever catch Gates? Not anytime soon. Despite the technology industry’s continuing woes, Gates is still $10 billion richer than America’s second-richest man,
Warren
Buffett
Warren Buffett
($36 billion), and more than twice as rich than technology rival
Larry
Ellison
Larry Ellison
($18 billion), who came in at number nine.

Click on the image above to view a timeline charting Gates’ decade-long reign as the richest man in the free world.